Chips are for guac, not shoulders.

We all have that one friend, that one coworker, that one family member who is always negative. The wine glass is always half empty, everyone is out to get me, whoa is me blah blah blah. If you are saying to yourself “I don’t know anyone like that”- you might be that person in your circle! Time to re-evaluate your life choices, kiddo.

I am like the most hypochondriac (hypochondriacal?) person I know. I think it’s rubbing off on the kids at this point. The sky might always be falling on chicken little me, but I am not a negative person. And I despise being around negative people.

I love Rachel Hollis. I credit her with firing up my entrepreneurial gene and fueling my self help spirit. If you are a female and have never listened to Girl, Wash Your Face or my current listen- Girl, Stop Apologizing- you are doing yourself the biggest disservice ever and go download it on Audible like yesterday. It is life changing, I am dead serious. In the book, I am at the part where she talks about your circle of friends, and how they can negatively or positively influence you.

This works in all relationships in my life. Negative coworkers make me not want to go into work in the morning. Spending time with negative friends leaves me feeling agitated and unhappy. Family members that can’t last 5 minutes into seeing them before they tell you about the latest injury or friend that passed away. It’s super depressing.

DadingWITHOUTanxiety and I are struggling with a lot of shit right now. Selling your house with two little monsters ain’t a walk in the park, I’m here to educate you. We have so many house showings where we have to be out of the house that we are basically homeless at this point. Having a ton of showings is a good problem to have, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t totally disruptive to our day to day life. The stress of hoping your house is good enough that people want to buy it, that it stays clean and decluttered enough that they can envision themselves living there. That nothing goes wrong with the house while we wait for a buyer. And a really big one- that we get to house closing ASAP because we are also making payments to the new house while this is going on. So, a lot of shit.

The power of negativity plays into this too. You feed off the emotions of others. When I get too stressed, Dading is there to say its ok and calm me down. I attempt to do the same for him, although I will confess he’s much better at it than I am. If we are both maxed out, all we do is stress each other out more.

It is so important to surround yourself with people that lift you up, instead of bring you down. And if you have people you can’t really avoid, like family or coworkers, it’s important to give them as wide a berth as you can. From experience, they are never going to change and it’s a hard lesson that I am still learning that it isn’t my fault. And for those people that are worth it, and are feeling down, lift them up and help them through it. We talked about this before, in my blog about return investments. Give your energy to those that deserve it, and those that will return the favor.

Eat your chips, don’t carry them around. They get stale, and nobody wants that noise.